The best Android keyboard apps

Trace, tap, type, talk

Keyboards are important. Really important. Without a good keyboard, communicating on a smartphone can go from heavenly bliss straight back to teeth-pulling torture. Keyboards are also one of the most important apps you select from a security standpoint, as they are by their very nature keyloggers. And while most users will never really need to worry about if their keyboard is stealing their emails and passwords as they type it in, it is something that you should keep in mind if you're checking out a keyboard that you know absolutely nothing about.

There are a number of great keyboards out there, each with its own features, flaws, and followings. There are utterly simplistic keyboards and bleeding-edge keyboards with a longer list of features than some smartphones. Finding a keyboard that fits you and your lifestyle can be a bit daunting.

Whatever your style may be, these are the five keyboards that we think stand above the rest, and may be worthy of composing your LOLs and WTFs.

1. SwiftKey

You can't talk about keyboards without someone chiming in about SwiftKey, one of the most popular keyboards on Android. For years, SwiftKey soared above Google's included keyboard, and it did — and still does — come preinstalled on many a phone and tablet. SwiftKey's prediction methods, called the "fluency engine," has made it the keyboard that many users and editors alike keep coming back to. SwiftKey has been pre-loaded on millions of devices over the years, including on flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S4.

While SwiftKey used to be a paid app, the keyboard itself went free last year, instead having users pay for themes — such as their Frozen theme pack. SwiftKey led the keyboard pack for a while, but don't think they're the only game in town.

Swype

Swype is to SwiftKey as GM is to Ford. Both are established, respected, feature-rich keyboards. Swype allows you to swipe out words or whole sentences, and Swype supports typing in two languages at once, for bilingual users. Swype offers a free version, but the full version is a dollar, and themes are an additional two dollars apiece. For those uninterested in having Elsa on they keyboard, Swype offers sports themes, including Major League Soccer themes.

Swype ties into Android's Accessibility features for TalkBack and Explore By Touch, which make Swype a keyboard vision-impaired users can learn more easily on their own. Copy/Cut/Paste functions are embedded as gestures in Swype's keyboard, too. Swype all the things!

Google Keyboard

While years ago, Google's built-in android keyboard was considered a bit of a slouch, it's built to compete today. The Google Keyboard is completely free, supports gesture typing for both individual words and entire sentences, a bounty of languages, a modest choice of themes, and it was the first keyboard to feature the full library of Kit Kat emoji last year. That may not sound like much, but after years of mediocre or downright dreadful emoji from the OEMs and keyboard manufacturers, Kit Kat system emoji was a welcome change and drew in quite a few users before third-party keyboards began to integrate it.

The Google Keyboard employs Google's own text-to-speech engine for voice dictation, and the many advancements in voice recognition made for Google Now and Android Wear over the last few years have benefitted this keyboard greatly. Google's keyboard still has a little ways to go on the text prediction, but it does learn from your typed data across Google's apps and services.

Fleksy

Fleksy is a keyboard that exudes class with its minimalist styling and its artfully done themes — if you want a Frozen keyboard theme that actually looks good, go get the Fleksy one. Now, make no mistake, Fleksy is not a cheap keyboard, though they do offer a 30-day trial to decide if it's worth the $1.99. After paying for the keyboard, most premium themes are also paid, including licensed themes like Frozen and The Hunger Games.

Beyond more traditional customization options like a fifth row for numbers and support for more layouts than your standard QWERTY and DVORAK, Fleksy's keyboard has extensions, allowing it to send things like gifs or work while becoming invisible. Another interesting addition to Fleksy is are the badges and rewards system that encourages users to master the keyboard and its features.

TouchPal

TouchPal is one of the lesser-recognized keyboards out there, but a few useful features have helped it stand out and get over 10 million installs. TouchPal's keyboard held the freemium model of an always-free keyboard with a paid theme store and paid cloud syncing before SwiftKey and the rest of the field headed that direction. However, while you can pay for premium themes, you also have the option to simply upload your own background image and make your own for free.

What has stood out about TouchPal for me, and made it my primary keyboard for the last year now are three things: the dialogue between the developers and the beta community, swiping from the backspace to delete the last word, and swiping the space bar up to access the emoji drawer, which supports system emoji and now emoji art and emoticons.

I try all the latest keyboards and I'm full aware of bugs. My issue is with the app (keyboard) using more battery then the stock keyboard. I usually give the keyboard a few days to see if I'm loosing more battery then stock and every time I end up uninstalling.

Your mistaken. Sure occasionally a bug in a keyboard can kill battery, but this is the exception, not the norm. I haven't seen any of my keyboards drain my battery and I have 5 installed that I switch between when desired. Also I haven't seen Fleksy ever appear in the Android battery monitor except when first starting up my device as nothing much else is running yet.

Using a more detailed Battery tracker like BetterBattery(root only on 4.4+) shows that the current default keyboard doesn't trigger many wake ups or wake locks. This obviously varies between keyboards and devices but I can safely say that a third party keyboard doesn't drain your battery as long as it's been properly coded, just like any other app.

Also remember that you're opening your keyboard way more often than any other app so it's easy to get the misconception that it's draining more of your battery.

Also use Kii Keyboard on my S4 it is the only one other then the stock swype keyboard that performs without hogging ram and lagging. Its super customizable but sort of bland in the theme department. Still by far the best IMHO

Opening the emoji menu is definitely sluggish. However everything else works smoothly and it's my preferred keyboard, although Swype, Fleksy, and the Google keyboard all are excellent choices for keyboards.

Hi Ryan, since you're inquiring on when lag occurs. I thought I'd let you know as much as I love SwiftKey, it does lag when you switch themes sometimes. Which makes me switch back to Google's keyboard. It only happens with the newer themes since y'all went freeminum. The classics are flawless.

On my phone it is google keyboard. For my tablet (Acer Iconia 8HD) i used to love swiftkey until it suddenly stopped working (resize options broken). I am using Flexsky because it is resizable but i miss the swipe to type option. It looks really cool though. Maybe I'll try swiftkey again once the trail is over; i'd prefer it over flexsky for sure.

Swiftkey doesn't stay default when the phone goes to sleep (which has been a problem since jelly bean), the app just stops working all together when trying to use flow, and the auto correct is trash. The MOST overrated app in Android history. I find myself correcting every other word.

That is the stupidest thing I have heard. Because a piece of software that I downloaded from the Play Store, is not working properly and it's my fault? Shut up stupid. I'm not the only one that has these issues. Regardless, it's not my fault that the keyboard doesn't work.

Why do people get so defensive over things like this? Go outside or something.

Sorry but this has to be your phone or the version of the app that you downloaded. The most overrated app in Android history, huh? Yeah, OK. You are what's known as the exception. Sorry for your trouble though. The keyboard is great.

Actually it's not my phone because, this phones been replaced, and I downloaded the app from the Play Store. Don't get butthurt over a piece of software that doesn't belong to you just because it doesn't work.

Name one other app that gets this much praise and doesn't hold up to the hype.

The Google Keyboard has very good flow or swiping. It annoys me because if you are in the numeric key pad it will switch back to alpha if you hit the space bar or next line. HELLO....? how do you put a space in between numbers? and yes you can have the number keys on the top row, but this is without any symbols or the rest of the keys on the numeric key pad.

Google keyboard is supposed to learn from other Google products, but it fails to learn from itself. I type the same text lines every morning when I get up. You would think it would remember some of these but no - it has no clue. The keys are also too small for large man fingers. What did only women test this thing?

Swiftkey - Swiftkey is very good with predictions. It remembers the lines I type every morning and chooses them as predictions, not just one word, but the entire phrase. It is terrible at swiping which is the way I prefer to input. It is just awful. When I swipe it will choose the incorrect word 95% of the time.

Swipe. Swipe is great at swiping. It will choose the correct word 95% of the time, but it is not good with predictions.

The Google stock keyboard is great with Flow/swiping, but Google needs to get the keyboard to learn from itself along with learning from other Google apps. They also need to provide a way to lock the numeric keypad so that it will not switch back to alpha unless I manually choose to unlock it to do so, and give us a way to increase the spacing between the keys please.

It could be the accuracy with which I am typing because I am not claiming to be that great with mobile keypads, but Google keyboard and Swipe can recognize what I am swiping to and come up with the correct word just fine, not so Swiftkey. I really like Google keyboard and wish they would make the changes I mentioned: Increase the space between keys, and give us a way to freeze that numeric key pad so it stays in the numeric function until I DECIDE to switch back to alpha.

Swiftkey... I've tried the Google keyboard and liked it, the only problem is that there is no long press option for special characters. I don't like having to go to a different screen for special characters. Or is there a way to do that that I am not aware of??

Minuum Keyboard for me. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whirlscape.minuumfree
Clean, simple, and SMALL! Stays out of the way and doesn't take up half the screen if you don't want it to. Takes a little getting used to, but it feels faster than swipe. And did I mention SMALL? Doesn't end up hiding text boxes, or replacing the screen with an input window. I've been in since the Indiegogo campaign. It's available free, or premium for $3.99.

I also use Minuum, but exclusively in full-keyboard mode. I love the adaptive theme (much better than Fleksy's), the prediction is great, the plugins for cursor/keyboard/emoji control are really handy, and it's quick to load! Sure I lose out on gesture-typing, but I type so well with one hand (one TINY hand on my Nexus 6 mind you), that I don't even miss Swype, Google, or Fleksy one bit. Haven't used Swiftkey since I switched to Swype ages ago because it was a slow mess. Went from Swype to Google Keyboard, Google Keyboard to Fleksy, and Fleksy to Minuum. Can't get enough!

SwiftKey here. Have tried a number of others, but I can't quit you, Swiftkey.

The predictions are the real killer for other contenders. SwiftKey just does a far superior job, and I also like the way the suggestions are implemented (which is more a "what I'm used to" factor)..

Google keyboard was fine when I tried it again not that long ago.

Fleksy has that great BlackBerry style layout that I want so badly for SwiftKey (which is funny since SwiftKey partnered with BB for the BB10 keyboard I believe). If I could have that flush to the sides second row in a SwiftKey theme, I'd just stop even looking at other options from time to time. That typing expereince is much better for me, but SwiftKey's predictions and other stuff (the long press secondary characters) sent me back anyway.

So, in your opinion, is there any reasonable chance of a BlackBerry style theme for the app? I note that every theme has different skinning and font, but the footprint of the keys doesn't change. Obviously with a BB theme, that second alpha row has to come all the way to the edges of the screen.

So, I am not that hopeful that I'll ever be able to use a BB layout via SwiftKey. With your knowledge and expreinces, what's your best guess?

The Fleksy style keyboard layout is a BB style layout. The main thing is that the second (A, S, D, F...) row is flush to the sides of the screen, not indented as on the SwiftKey themes and every other keyboard app I've seen.

As I mentioned earlier, I think I read that SwiftKey partnered with BB for the BB10 keyboard. It's just a matter of whether or not it's possible to integrate a completely different footprint in to the existing SwifyKey app, I gues.

Swiftkey has a number row that can be toggled on. It's off by default in the settings. When I load Swiftkey on a device the first two settings I change are add a number row and add arrow keys which are also super useful.

I loved iKeyBoard, it was totally free, didn't ask for a bunch of crazy permission, totally customizable, and totally usable. But it recently disappeared from the play store. I just got a new phone and have been happy with the stock Google keyboard. I sure do miss that iKeyBoard though.

I love the spacing, style, and clicky sounds of Samsung's default keyboard on my Note Edge. of course it's a bigger phone and spacing is nice. also includes swyping features. otherwise my other favorite is swype, looks clean, is smart and works very well.

I use to use ai type keyboard because they had undo redo, after finding an app called type machine, I deleted ai type and installed SwiftKey! I am so glad i did! I tried going back to other keyboards but I always stick with SwiftKey.

SwiftKey isn't perfect and there are things I wish they would fix, but for the most part it's great. Been using it for years now so it's hard to change. I've tried to go back to Google keyboard at times but then I miss the features of SwiftKey, specifically how it recognizes when to add spaces between words because apparently I can't hit the space bar adequately lol.

Nexus 5 running textra and google keyboard. I get a black screen once in a while that I am forced to reboot to use the phone. Mostly seems tied to lock screen notifications but if using swiftkey you absolutely cannot respond via the lock screen.

Eh. I think that Minuum is Fleksy on steroids, personally. And this is coming from a big fan of Fleksy. Fleksy has gotten too spastic in its superfluous features for me. The identical swiping features in Minuum are 10 times more accurate for me than Fleksy was. Autocorrect is so much more accurate. Maybe it's just me, but I was genuinely surprised when switching from Fleksy to Minuum.

Thanks for the tip. I had tried minuum previously but never really liked it. It's certainly better now, but it keeps hasseling me about my free trial is expired. I'll leave it on my phone for a little bit and see if I like it better than Fleksy. But for now Flesky is paid for and will likely return as my default. Unless I start to fall for minuum.

I switch between keyboards quite often. Currently, the most used keyboard is TouchPal, followed by SwiftKey and Fleksy. While holding the phone, I can type extremely fast with Fleksy, especially since they recently added typing shortcuts. On my Transformer, TouchPal actually works better with the physical keyboard dock. It took some getting used to, but it has some interesting features. I'm gravitating towards it more and more these days instead of SwiftKey.

I've tried all of these keyboards, and TouchPal is easily the best one I've used (foafter that probably SwiftKey). I started using in old Windows Mobile days, and always keep coming back... But I mostly prefer due to the 12 key phone pad with keyboard with predictive text. This likely makes me sound old, but it's absolutely great for one hand thumb typing, especially with a larger phone like the Note 4.

Been using Google keyboard for a long time and it's good. I like the Material design and the general layout of options, the minimalist nature and and the quick access to the common punctuation (without having to hunt through a mess of secondary keys). The problem is that the text prediction and text correction algorithms are TERRIBLE! Just god awful.

I just switched back to SwiftKey to see how long I can tolerate that. We'll see, the text prediction is better but it's not as user friendly and it tries to do way too much. I miss the Windows Phone 8.1 keyboard a lot, that thing crushes all of these. Would be cool if MS released that as a standalone Android keyboard.

I can't vote in the poll as I use SwiftKey, Fleksy and Google Keyboard. Google keyboard for Pinyin input, SwiftKey for fast and complex typing, Fleksy as my current daily driver (with Chameleon theme).

Not currently supported:
Removing an unwanted prediction is currently not supported in Chinese
Multilingual currently not supported, however the most common English words are available within the Chinese language model
Predictive emoji is not currently supported in Chinese
Fuzzy Pinyin is currently not supported
Pinyin candidate “continuous selection” in 12-Key Pinyin layout is not currently supported
Handwriting recognition input method is currently not supported
SwiftKey Flow is not currently supported in Chinese
Full multilingual between Pinyin and QWERTY based input is not supported

Still might be worth using the beta to test out new layouts and fixes before they roll out. Thanks for the feedback.

The beta is looking good but I'm not a native Chinese speaker. I can only type in PinYin. I can't use ZhuYin or Cangjie. I still use SwiftKey for other things, but it won't be my Chinese keyboard of choice until a pinyin keyboard for Taiwan traditional Chinese is introduced. Thanks for your diligence.

I have been using nintype for the last one month. although its not that stable on android yet. It has potential. it works like keymonk and you can do two finger swiping. I toggle between swiftkey and nintype.

Okay I just went into my settings and I think I'm using Samsung keyboard. I thought I was using Swype because I use the Swype feature to compose texts. So in actuality I'm using the Samsung keyboard with the Swype feature? Could somebody help me out here?

Swift key sucks. Actually, it's not alone in the keyboard universe on android, as they all seem to suck. I like the word flow keyboard on wp so much better. I'm using swift key now only because I like the black and green theme. Otherwise I'm looking to replace it.

For my phone I use Swype and for my tablet I use the Hacker's Keyboard (a real keyboard layout, how can you beat that for a large screen?).

I'm actually surprised that Swype isn't used by more of those who responded to the poll in this article. It's come with every phone I've owned (Atrix 4G, Galaxy SIII, Galaxy S5), while SwiftKey has not.

I was beginning to think that I was the only one still using Swype!
I tried to adapt to the Google keyboard when I went Lollipop. But, the swiping (might just be me) really sucked. I was constantly retyping words. That and the fact that you cannot long press for punctuation(?) made me return to Swype.
I have built up an extensive personal dictionary with Swype and it always seems to get my swiping right. But after reading the comments here, I may give Swiftkey a go....

This.
All other keyboards are made for monolingual people. Yes, you can switch languages, but none of them, with the exception of SwiftKey can understand text entered in more than one language at the same time.
Switching languages back and forward 3-5 times within a single sentence is a pain in the as5. No other language is an option for the multicultural community in which we live now.

I still like SwiftKey the best. Just wish they'd bring back the arrow keys on one of the secondary keyboards (without having to have arrow keys always on). Also wish they'd get rid of the sliding punctuation (for exclamation and question marks) - frequently used punctuation should be on dedicated long-press keys. In fact, would be awesome if they let you edit the long press keys!

I did just install Swype again after a long time and am pleasantly surprised by how good it works even doing two-thumb typing.

I am so used to SwiftKey! Tried the new Google keyboard, liked it. However it's a little laggy and the prediction is not on par with SwiftKey so I went back to what I am most comfortable with, which is SwiftKey. Flekdkey tried it, don't like it. I find it hard to use with its gesture concept and kinda odd and never got around to like it. Swype? I will never be comfortable with swype motion from one letter to the other it's always a miss for me. In the future once Google has fix all the kinks and improve its words suggestions and predictions I may come back to it. One thing I like most about the Google keyboard is where the voice button for dictations. SwiftKey you have to long press the commas key and it is at the bottom left which I find it hard to use for most right handed.

The one thing that separates Swiftkey from the others for me, is the way it auto inserts spaces, even between multiple words. I haven't found another keyboard that even comes close to matching this feature.
Anyone else?

I find that feature annoying, actually. Because if you're a stickler for grammar (like myself), you have to delete the space it auto-adds in order to properly hyphenate, add quotations, or insert a number of other punctuation characters.

Fair comment. I agree with you to a certain extent, although you can 'train' the program to remember certain things. I find myself missing spaces a lot more often than I need a hyphen or whatever though.
Having said that, I am open to try new keyboards as they pop up. I figure I have tried a lot, if not almost all by now though. Keep going back to Swiftkey.

Removing the space before an apostrophe is quite irritating when using the Afrikaans language. The indefinite article is 'n. Fortunately, the predictions recognise this and offer two words in the predictions. (In my earlier sentence, is 'n becomes is'n as a precursor for isn't.)

I used Swype exclusively for the longest time. I absolutely love their layout, the look and feel. What has been an issue off and on with Swype, is the amount of lag it has from time to time. Either with actually opening the keyboard, or with catching up after I've swiped a word or 2.

For a brief period, I tried SwiftKey, and felt it was a glorified Swype. I still kinda do feel that way. I prefer the solid line that traces in Swype, and SwiftKey just feels less fluid. My biggest complaint about it though, is the fact that Swype learned my swiping habits well enough to get autocorrect and word-predictions damn-near spot-on.

I've switched (semi) permanently to SwiftKey, and here's why: Swype isn't intuitive, based on the app it's being used it. It doesn't know when emoji's can be/should be available, and the same is true with carriage-return for multiple lines in the same text box. Bugs the living piss out of me, so I deal with my own personal dissatisfaction with SwiftKey because it has neither of those problems. I can do a line return any time I want, and I can add an emoji any time I want.

Never much cared for the Google keyboard, though I haven't used it recently, admittedly.

You missed the most important feature about SwiftKey: it can accept input in up to 3 languages at the same time without having to switch languages in the middle of a sentence.
With other keyboards, if the sentence have 2 words in a secondary language I must stop 4 times to switch languages. It is insane, and not an option at all. The lack of the feature is a show stopper for those of us living in a multicultural community, and I bet that many of your readers live in similar condition.

I'm surprised Minuum was not mentioned. I don't use it often, but rocks when using landscape orientation in form filling.

My go to daily driver is Swiftkey for a number of reasons. I'm learning Hindi which it supports the best. You can switch instantly between languages with a quick swipe on the space bar. In my case I can switch instantly from English to Hindi which is excellent for entering flash card info into Anki Droid. Since I have 4 devices (3-Android and 1-IOS) the cloud syncing learned predictions is a blessing. Swiftkey on my 10' tablet is the best since I can resize the keys smaller giving my screen more real estate and yet it's still perfectly good size to type fast on. You can also make it a floating "phone" sized keyboard on one side so you can type with one hand while holding the tablet with the other hand. Using SwiftKey flow, you can type away on a huge tablet with just your thumb. Hands down the best feature is the second symbol long press on certain themes. I rarely ever need to switch to the number or symbol keyboards. I just hold down the key with the secondary symbol on it to insert that symbol. If you type Hindi using the Devanagari script, this is a huge blessing since there is no real standard layout of Hindi keyboards. No need to search between other modes for the symbol you need. I've tried the Google Hindi functions in both the Google Hindi keyboard and the Hindi language addition in the standard Google Keyboard and the flipping back and forth between two modes is super annoying.

That said, Swiftkey does have a tiny flaw that causes me to flip to the Google Keyboard. A lot of times when using remote access software, the text prediction functions get in the way of typing on the remote computer. So when using Citrix Receiver or Splashtop to access remote desktops, I usually need to switch to the Google Keyboard to enter text and passwords.

Though not a "keyboard" in the traditional sense, take a look at adding MyScript Stylus (beta) from the folks at MyScript (they make the best hand written note app) if you use a stylus with your tablet (or Note series phones) and like to input text by handwriting it out. It really can read some bad chicken scratch and is pretty good at converting it to text. And it's free! I use this over my Note 3's stock Samsung handwriting input because it works better. It's also available for IOS if you run with that too.

You gave out false information. While Swipe did hold the Guinness World Record at one time. Flesky actually holds that crown, twice over. It took the crown on a Android device (don't know which) and then later beat it's own record on a iPhone 6+. Which is still held to this day.
As for personal keyboard I use MInuum. By far my favorite once you learn it. I also think I can beat the record with it but too lazy to try. LOL

Was using swiftkeys, swype then Google keyboard. I tried them all but now I found "KK Emoji keyboard" the best so far. Its almost the combination of all of the above mentioned. I like large keybard with simplicity. A little fun with the emoji is a bonus. I can also swype if I choose to. "KK Emoji keyboard" is by far the best one I am using right now.

SwiftKey, Fleksy, and the Google keyboard are my go to keyboards. I switch between them as I feel like it. That said, I like the way SwiftKey and Fleksy handle punctuation better than Google keyboard, like the commas and periods, by making sure that the punctuation goes straight to the end of the previous word, something that google keyboard doesn't do. SwiftKey has better predictions, so by process of elimination that's the one I use the most :-P

I tried Ginger briefly and the touch sensitivity (or something) was way off. The keyboard wasn't recognizing the proper letters when I typed. I think I saw another comment or two about this at the time. Haven't gone back to try it again. I assume it has been updated since then.

whenever Swiftkey has a big update I re-install it and by the end of the day I'm back on the Google Keyboard. It's not that Swiftkey isn't good, it's one of the best but the Google Keyboard has just gotten so good that I always go back to it, I like its simplicity even though others offer extra features and themes.

I am sorry but both Fleksy and Swiftkey are horrible as they always tend to type the most wrong words. I hardly ever get anything right. Well, the other day I was using my friend's iPhone and I was totally blown away by the keyboard there. I do not quite like iOS devices but that keyboard is awesome.

I am a Swype fan, rushed out to buy it when it came out of beta. It, and most of the others, have gotten too bloated. Swype took over my phone (an older dinosaur). Went back to the much smaller beta. Till I found the Multi-o. Any language you can think of, loads of customizations (too many for a good UI!), and the whole business takes 330k. That's right. Added langauges/dictionaries extra but everything can be symlinked away.

Not as good as Swype or Swiftkey, but I have phone resources left to use the apps into which I type.

Alternative proposal: Google Translate now has it all (and works 100% on my dinosaur!): Use of favortie KB, voice input, OCR input, handwriting input and, of course, the translations -- make this a keyboard intent!

I have tried them all at time or another but the two that I consistently alternate between are Swiftkey and Flesky. I really love the look and feel of Flesky, and once you get over the steep learning curve for all the gestures you can type very quickly. I feel tho swiftkey is the most accurate and the easiest to adapt to and with the new themes, swiftkey is also a beautiful keyboard to look at.

I have used four keyboards on my S5: the Samsung keyboard, Google keyboard, Swiftkey, and Swype. Swype was my go-to keyboard on my Droid X 4 years ago but I don't like it's predictive text features now. Swiftkey was OK but I didn't like it's swype-like input and the keyboard seemed to consume more resources. I don't like Samsung's keyboard because the keys are way too small and their swype-like input is even worse than Swiftkey's. In the end, I went with the Google keyboard. It's fast, any custom learned words follow my Google account so I don't have to worry about making yet another account with another company, I am really digging the Material Dark look, and Google's swype-like input is the best I have used.

Swiftkey has been my keyboard standard for a long time now for the simple fact that I have yet to find another keyboard that knows exactly what I want to type pretty much before I type it. I save so much time because Swiftkey learns my common phrases and just knows what I want to say. Other keyboards look great. I tried Fleksy for a little while, but eventually went back to Swiftkey because I missed the superior auto complete system. I also simply can not live without the long press symbols on the letter keys. I have found no other keyboard that has that.

Kii keyboard is HANDS DOWN the best android keyboard ever created. Nothing.... and I mean NOTHING comes close.... not even remotely close.
Problem however, is that Google Play pulled it, reasons unknown.

The good news is that you can still get it by downloading it from Google plus or other sites.

Until someone comes up with something better I will be forever chasing Kii's developer for updates.

I've used a whole mess of keyboards. and im at a point where none of them do anything so spectacular anymore that I will go and download them over the stock google keyboard. used sype when it was new. google does that. used an emojii keyboard, google does that, used swift for the prediction, google does that. not a fan of themes so never cared but google does that too. soooooooooo google keyboard is it for me. I guess you can say google built their keyboard around the best features of others.

I have been switching between SwiftKey, Fleksy and Google kb because each has its own advantages over the others. However, I always end up just using SwiftKey because it is simply the best one overall. I can type in 3 different languages simultaneously, which works flawlessly! I can swipe if I'm using one hand (and again in 3 languages). I also love the punctuation method and the word prediction is the best out of the 3. The only thing missing is the smoothness of Fleksy and Google kb. Fleksy is beautiful, smooth, and fast BUT it doesn't have swipe nor simultaneous multi language. Also, the punctuation method drives me nuts on this one. Google kb has the advantage of having the looks, the feel and swiping capabilities but it is unfortunately also lacking the simultaneous multi language. All SwiftKey needs now is to look and feel like Fleksy or Google KB. And all Fleksy and Google KB need is all of SwiftKey's awesome features!...

Swiftkey for me. I've been using it for a few years now. It's just seemed to be the best at predicting for me. Now that I learned how to put a row of numbers on the main screen made it that much better. I don't do the swipe thing.

@Ara Wagoner Really glad to see someone calling out TouchPal for once. I have fallen in love with this keyboard on both Android and iOS. The options that stand out to me are the ability to swipe secondary characters like up for numbers and the ease of resizing the keyboard. It's not perfect as I can't seem to get it to capitalize my I's by default and a few other nitpicky things that I can't recall in the moment but overall it's been my choice for months now as well.

This has happened before in discussions of keyboards, but when I look at the comments as a whole, I get the feeling that people don't realize how customizable SwiftKey really is. You can activate, or deactivate certain things. You can have a dedicated number row or not, extra characters or not, arrow keys or not. You can resize the keyboard to 5 different sizes, undock it, use a regular, compact or thumb layout. Those are just the things that jump to mind and haven't been mentioned by others.

If you've tried it and liked it even a little, maybe go back and try it aggain but play around with the settings, if you haven't. It allows for a lot of things you're missing (or enduring depending on your issue).

I loved SWYPE on my Galaxy S 3, I was dissapointed when my Note 4 didn't come with it because the Samsung one does not have a very good Swipe to type feature, much less accurate. I Downloaded the SWYPE app and it didn't work as well on this phone as it had on the s3... the only positive thing about the current samsung keyboard is the dedicated number row, no long press or second page required!

I'm a little surprised keyboards are popular in general, regardless of OS. I personally like to type using proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Most people don't. It has been a while since I tried a keyboard other than Swype, but I just can't move away from it. Gestures for the following are just so easy:
Cut
Copy
Paste
All punctuation
Shortcut to the number pad

Also, the long press punctuation just makes sense. Long press the S for $, A for @, X for !.

I would love a dedicated number row at the top for Swype but the developers won't budge.

Which one do you recommend for my needs because the google stock keyboard is not good for me, i'm comming from windows phone and the keyboard was very accurate on word suggestions, autocorrect and switching between different languages (English-Spanish)

I prefer the Samsung default keyboard as the swiping is good, the prediction is also great. I need and love the number pad at the top although I wish it also had the arrow keys from the old HTC keyboards. The dictionary isn't very good and it always loses my saved words even though you can pull typing preferences from Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Contacts, etc...

I wish I could use the Google Voice typing all the time but it just doesn't do punctuation, numbers, money, or much of anything other than actual words well. Sadly iOS is amazing with typing as it can do parenthesis, quotes (opening and closing), money and numbers (dollar signs, cents, phone numbers). That's saying something as I hate Apple and iOS but I am man enough to admit where they have the upper hand.

Anyone have a keyboard that can do Swiping, number pad always on, arrows and has a good dictionary? Oh the emoji on Samsung devices blow too and I wish you could set a default or your own pack like everything else in Android, lol! Thanks!

I used Swype for years... loved it. Then when Swiftkey came along I used it for quite a while.. liked it about as much. When google came out with their own Swype like keyboard I wanted to use it since it used Google now, which was much more accurate at transcribing voice to text. However, Google keyboard has a way to go, as far as getting right what I am trying to type when I am swyping. For that reason I have been using Swype keyboard and Google Now for voice via a plugin I found that requires root. I hope Google can get their keyboard as good as Swype and Swiftkey as I would prefer to just use the Google stuff.

I used to use SwiftKey and I *loved* its predictive typing engine. But actually typing on the keyboard was awful. My wife continues to use SwiftKey because she doesn't actually type. She hunts and pecks and then taps the word she wants. I'm much faster at just typing out the word I want.

I really prefer Fleksy. I am actually really quite a bit more efficient at typing on fleksy than on any other keyboard I've tried. I love the gesture support. My favorite is swiping right to left to delete the previous word.

What I would love more than anything (I think) is the fleksy keyboard layout and gestures on top of a SwiftKey prediction engine.

Hey! I use that one too! It's amazing! Never seen any keyboard that light! It's got a learning curve and I'd to customize it to learn Hinglish (Hindi+English variant found in other keyboards). But once all that was done, I can't tell you the freedom I get to mess around with it!

I have been waiting desperately for someone to come up with a keyboard that has copy paste, etc along with the direction arrows, up, down, sideways. I put off getting a new phone for 2 extra years because I didn't want to lose my Droid 3 keyboard. Now I have the late and great Droid Turbo and no way to paste, no way to hit the exact spot in a line of words and correct, need I go on?? Have you ever tried to get the cursor to land right at the end or beginning of a word consistently? How about landing on any letter of the desired word? Then a delete key for just a couple letters would RREALLLLLY be nice. I hate doing anything on my "keyboard". It goes and IS NO WHERE. Every time I type I need THESE FEATURES I mentioned here. Would someone with half a brain please make one???? Then TELL ME HOW TO GET IT.

Smart Keyboard Pro. Supports multiple languages dictionary easily switchable from keyboard. Also has numeric keyboard (like phone keypad) where I may see which letters are assigned to the numeric keys.

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